Friday, March 2, 2012

Please accept our apologies for the delay in getting out a long overdue update on our 2012 Annual General Meeting, held Jan. 18 at Birchcliff Bluffs United Church.

First off, the official business:

·Members voted in the following members of the Board of Directors for 2012: Mark Brender, Karen Direkze, Tamara Hermann, Reg James, Wilf Longley, Sheila McIsaac, Joanne Smith and Tim Weber. We wish to express our appreciation to Sneva Lee, who stepped down off the board after several years of service.

·Our thanks also go out to Councillor Gary Crawford, MPP Lorenzo Berardinetti and MP Dan Harris for their attendance, participation and support. Huge kudos as always go out to Mary Louise Hall for her pro bono work as CCQLD’s auditor. And most of all, thanks to all the members who came out to the AGM and continue to support our collective goal of ensuring responsible development on the Quarry Lands.

Much of the meeting was spent discussing information provided to the community by Build Toronto, in the form of a letter and a map showing land ownership and, for Build Toronto property, land use plans. As you know, Build Toronto is an arms-length city agency responsible for developing underused city-owned land, inlcuding brownfields such as the Quarry Lands. In the letter addressed to CCQLD and handed out at the AGM, Build Toronto (BT) outlined the following points:

·BT continues to plan a low-rise residential development with a focus on open space and pedestrian scale on the 11-acre land parcel south of the CN Rail Line (ie, predominantly the north-central section of the Quarry site).

·BT is working on plans for “higher quality retail” roughly on city-owned lands currently occupied by the driving range.

·Commercial developer RioCan has purchased the 6-acre commercial plaza area extending north and east from the Victoria Park/Gerrard corner.

·A traffic consultant is studying potential road networks over the BT controlled land portions, with potential for expansion into lands owned by Conservatory Group, should an agreement be reached that would make a unified road network possible

·BT does not foresee any environmental concerns associated with its planned development concept.

From a conceptual standpoint, the board of CCQLD shared its belief that ideas being put forward by Build Toronto do represent positive developments in what has often been a long and frustrating process. In marked contrast to where we stood two or three years ago, we no longer feel that we are fighting a battle on two fronts -- ie. with the city as well as the private developer. Build Toronto is now expressing similar thoughts to those that have long been advocated by CCQLD – and this is a direct result, we believe, of the strong advocacy and mobilization undertaken by so many our community in recent years.

All that said, we have no new information to share regarding developments on land owned by the Conservatory Group. We will continue to advocate for responsible development. We will also continue to oppose, speak out and mobilize against an outdated and highly inappropriate high-rise tower vision for our community, based on planning and zoning from the 1960s, should events proceed in this direction.

For those who were unable to attend the AGM, please renew your 2012 membership today by sending a cheque for $10, made out to ‘Concerned Citizens of Quarry Lands Development’ to 63 Woodland Park Road, Toronto, ON, M1N 1X5. Thank you as always for your ongoing support.